The Blue-Collar Catholic Conference

Christendom needs a Blue-Collar Conference

Join us on October 17th, 10am-noon

Christian media has a white-collar bias


Its almost nothing but college educated dudes talking to other college educated dudes.


However, Jesus was blue-collar

The majority of the Apostles were blue-collar



It took me 30 years to learn this.



One evening, as I lumbered clumsily from my work van into my house after a long day, a thought struck me. Jesus got to choose His dad. The eternal God had a plan, looked down on little old earth, and pointed to Joseph, a simple, hard-working, blue-collar guy, and said: “him.”

Jesus didn’t want a priest, scribe, rabbi, merchant, or scholar. No worldly or religious esteem suited Him. He wanted a dad that came home tired with callouses every night.

Jesus knew by choosing His own dad, He was also choosing His own trade. The custom at the time was for a child to take on his fathers trade. This means Jesus wanted to be a carpenter.

Out of a world of possibilities, He chose a blue-collar job.

Philippians 2:6-7 clarifies that Jesus let go of being God and held on to us by being a carpenter.



Yet I’ve never heard the blue-collar Christ preached from the pulpit.



I grew up in church, first baptized at the age of five by Pastor Stevens at Northside Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina . My whole childhood, my family attended church every Sunday and Wednesday as we moved all over America.



I went to Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly, Missouri. There, we had chapel twice a week and I still went to church on Sundays.



Later, I started a family, and eventually dropped out of Bible College. I found my calling as an electrician and have been taking my own family to church every Sunday and Wednesday. On top of that, I have been listening to a variety of Christian radio preachers nearly every time I sit in a car.



I’m sharing this so you understand I have listened to a lifetime of sermons. When I say I’ve never heard the blue-collar Christ preached from the pulpit, I hope it carries some weight.



It’s important that Jesus chose to become a carpenter when presented with a world of options. Christ showed using manual labor to support a family was a worthy calling, redeemed the trade of carpentry from idol makers, and extensively used blue-collar teachings and ministers to change the world.



This conference responds to a clear need in blue-collar discipleship: The preponderance of Catholic media, and Christian media more generally is targeted at white-collar audiences.



Blue-Collar Catholics are looking for practical guidance, trusted perspectives, and a place to connect around blue-collar and working class interests that aren’t being met elsewhere.

By bringing this conversation online, the conference makes access easier, expands reach, and creates a timely platform for education, visibility, and partnership.



Register now, and join us on Saturday Oct 17th, at 10:00am EST Lets get to work.


Come hear John Martignoni give a keynote on workplace evangelism and apologetics. He's worked as an apologist with Catholic Answers.

He’s hosted a show called, Blue Collar Apologetics on EWTN

That was based on his book by the same name, https://amazon.com/Blue-Collar-Apologetics-Catholic-Teaching/dp/1682781135/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1

His primary work is as founder of the Bible Christian Society, https://biblechristiansociety.com He's a great guy with a TON of knowledge to share.

The closing talk will be given by Kyle VanDuser,

He’s on X as @bluecollarPX

Kyle is the author of Blue Collar Catholicism, https://amazon.com/Blue-Collar-Catholicism-Investing-Eternity/dp/B0CFCQ1JGC/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

He is a former Protestant Pastor's kid turned Catholic, it's a great testimony. He's usually on Instagram https://instagram.com/bluecollarcatholica and a registered speaker with Catholic Speakers.

He runs an executive coaching firm called Cyprus Island Enterprises, https://cyprusislandenterprises.com/our-team

He's a solid, approachable dude with a great story.

I'll be MCing the event and running a panel or two I really want to thank Bishop Michael Burbidge for his support in this endeavor. While he won't be able to join us due to other commitments, he has sent his prayerful support.

Register now, it's free but there are only 100 spots at this time.

Join us on October 17th, 10am-noon

Let's get to work.

Register now


Blue-Collar is Central to the Culture: Blue-Collar Christians are the Majority

Blue-collar culture by the numbers! Want a larger Men's ministry? Want more young adults? Want a more engaged group of believers? Ever wonder what Christian demographics look like? Let's look at some PEW research numbers and see how many blue-collar Christians there are at Church, Bible study, and how engaged they are. What would happen if we started talking to them? What growth could happen?

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Blue-Collar Church History: The White-Collar Shift, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

Was the Early Church always blue-collar? When did they shift to being predominantly white-collar and why? Was it’s God’ timing or gentrification of the Church? Let’s see why God enabled this shift at just the right time to protect His Church for complex and nuanced heresies. The gnostics are everywhere this time and Irenaeus is having NONE of it.

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers in the New Testament, Acts to the Epistles, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

The book of Acts lists several more significant blue-collar Christians of the early Church: the Apostle Simon, a tanner, and quite the trio of tentmakers, including the Apostle Paul. Tanners are emblematic of blue-collar work. They took dead animal carcasses and turned them into usable leather, a critical service for other craftsmen who worked with leather. As a first century Hebrew working entirely with dead things, Simon spent more time unclean than clean, and he would've smelled horrible almost all of the time. He would've been at or near the bottom of any social hierarchy. If Simon ever wanted to go to the temple or offer any sacrifice, he would've had to set aside his livelihood for a time. Simon is about as blue-collar as first-century Hebrews come.

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers in the New Testament, Christ’s Apostles, The Blue-Collar Blindspot

What relevance does Blue-Collar have in the Bible? What is it’s place in Church history as seen in scripture? Starting with Jesus and His Apostles, how blue-collar were they? What kind of people did Jesus personally choose to found and guide His Church? We see Christ a Carpenter, and his friends… His friends…

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Blue-Collar Church History: Blue-Collar Workers In the Old Testament

In order to develop a Godly view of blue-collar men and women, it is important to understand that blue-collar workers are central to Christ’s harvest of souls throughout the centuries. God has consistently used people who weren’t the smartest, the best looking, or the most talented. What God required most from His servants was that they showed up, and gave it their best.

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The Blue-Collar Bible: Blue-Collar in the New Testament (Jesus’ Teaching), Excerpt from The Blue-Collar Blindspot

What examples of blue-collar language do we have in the New Testament? What kind of lessons does Jesus teach using blue-collar language? Can we learn anything from Christ's embrace of his calloused hands and upbringing? Read along as we watch Jesus swing a hammer and metaphors elbow to elbow with the least of these.

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot, Why does it matter?

Jesus - from eternity past - looked at all of the humans in the world and chose a first century Israelite carpenter to be His father. He knew that choosing His father would be choosing His profession, therefore Jesus chose to be a carpenter. What? The God of the universe came down and didn’t choose royalty, nobility, politicians, lawyers, merchants, businessmen, or even priests. Why?

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot, What do Others Say About τέκτων?

What was Jesus? What did Jesus do for a living? Was Jesus a Carpenter? For a while now there has been an undercurrent in Christian literature to subvert this and try to assert that Jesus was any of a myriad of other things: unskilled day laborer, small businessman, stone mason, or even trained rabbi. This is just plain wrong. Jesus was, IS a Carpenter.

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Christ as Carpenter: The Blue-Collar Blindspot (Cont.)

The Christian tradition has always taught Jesus was a carpenter by vocation. For a while now there has been an undercurrent in Christian literature to subvert this and try to assert that Jesus was any of a myriad of other things. I do not think any of the other options have a strong linguistic or evidential basis supporting them. Let's start with what it says in the scripture itself.

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The Leadership Divide, Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont)

There are precious few indigenous Christian leaders within the blue-collar community. One of the common earmarks for success in a mission field is a self-sustaining church with indigenous leadership. This is something blue-collar men are provably lacking. Part of the data I collected in my survey of Christian literature was each author’s background.

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Defining the Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont.) The Calendar Divide

The modern Evangelical movement doesn’t come to blue-collar country. By country, I mean the average blue-collar worker’s schedule as compared to the average church’s schedule. Conflicting schedules prevent blue-collar parishioners from participation in most or all church activities. Sadly, this leads to fewer blue-collar parishioners in attendance and thereby reduces the perceived need for odd-schedule Bible studies and worship services.

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Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot (cont.) The Cultural Divide

From what I’ve seen in my life, the three main features of blue-collar culture are to wake up early, work hard, and build things. Any one of these may also apply to many white-collar workers, but these are foundational pillars of blue-collar culture. As far as white-collar culture goes, I don’t have much direct experience. I do know that the exact definition of what is early, what is hard, and what is building are different for an accountant than for a plumber. The primary values are not the same, and therein lies the difficulty in communication. Each group has different values, and those differences affect the way each group sees the world.

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Defining The Blue-Collar Blindspot

I see blue-collar workers like a people group in a foreign country. There are four main divides that isolate this remote country in the heart of America. A language divide, a cultural divide, a calendar divide, and a leadership divide. Each one adds together to create the borders of this small country. I will outline the problem one divide at a time, like putting legs on a stool.

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